CIPES is a private association founded by the Universities of Aveiro and Porto.
Its mission is to engage in scholarly research in order to advance critical thought and promote informed understanding about the vital policy issues confronting higher education at both the national and international arenas, aiming to contribute to strengthen the public debate on higher education issues.
CIPES is currently one of the largest centres in the world devoted to higher education research, and the only
Portuguese research centre specialized in higher education policies.
CIPES has awarded major relevance to the internationalization of its activities. Thus, it became a founding member of
HEDDA – the Higher Education Development Association, and is an active partner in several other important research networks in the field of higher education research. CIPES has been actively participating in various international research projects and it has become a standard practice for its researchers to participate in relevant international conferences and to publish regularly in international journals.
CIPES hosts the secretariat of CHER’ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, the leading European research organization in its field.
CIPES gives great relevance to an intense dissemination activity of its research results. The performance on publication has enhanced CIPES’ national and international visibility and recognition, providing new and interesting opportunities for collaboration and intervention.
CIPES also gives great attention to advance training in higher education, with several of its members collaborating in masters and doctoral programs, namely with the ERASMUS Mundus European Master in Higher Education Policy (co-organized by the Universities of Aveiro, Oslo and Tampere) and the UNIKE ITN network’s Universities in the
Knowledge Economy, both of which was very successful. CIPES is a member in EUREDOCS, a network of research centres focused in higher education policies aiming at the promotion of doctoral education and junior doctorates.
Higher education is a field of research to which contribute multiple disciplines and CIPES? work has been permanently developed as a multidisciplinary unit, so that each project and each line of research benefits from the diverse backgrounds of a sub-set of its members.
At national level, CIPES collaborates frequently with the most important system’s organizations such as the Ministry of Higher Education, the National Council of Education, the Councils of Rectors and of Presidents of Polytechnics or A3ES. CIPES’ researchers are regularly consulted by those organizations to provide assistance and technical expertise on higher education issues such as funding, quality, or governance.
CIPES also develops outreach activities at international level, having been responsible for a number of quality assessment activities, namely the institutional audits for the EUA and the reviews by ENQA.